The 3D tooth model segmentation method based on GAC+PointMLP network

Precise segmentation of individual teeth from digital three-dimensional (3D) tooth models is critical in computer-assisted orthodontic surgery. This study explores the application of Point Multi-Layer Perceptron (PointMLP) in processing 3D tooth models and introduces an innovative integration of the Graph Attentional Convolution (GAC) Layer with a graph attention mechanism. By incorporating the GAC Layer into PointMLP, the model can focus on key local regions in the 3D tooth model and dynamically adjust the attention applied to these areas. This enhanced attention mechanism allows the model to better capture subtle surface structures, facilitating the accurate extraction of valuable local features. Compared to other traditional segmentation algorithms, the proposed method shows improvements of 1.1, 2.04, 1.06, 2.2, and 1.8 percentage points in Overall Accuracy (OA), Sensitivity (SEN), Positive Predictive Value (PPV), and Intersection Over Union (IoU), respectively. At the same number of training epochs, our method outperforms both GAC and PointMLP in segmentation performance.